Early in December they received from Dublin an intimation that two companies of Popish infantry were to be immediately quartered on them.
The alarm of the little community was great, and the greater because it was known that a preaching friar had been exerting himself to inflame the Irish population of the neighbourhood against the heretics.

A daring resolution was taken.

Come what might, the troops should not be admitted.

Yet the means of defence were slender.

Not ten pounds of powder, not twenty firelocks fit for use, could be collected within the walls.